Search begins for new stars

With one gold, one silver and three bronze, China's short- track speed skaters contributed most of the medals for the country at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games, which came to a conclusion yesterday.

However, the traditional short-track powerhouse has to wait for more talents to emerge to maintain its strength after the Games, since veterans will retire.

"We have to admit that besides Wang Meng, there are no more talented skaters in the country right now," said Tong Lixin, leader of the Chinese short-track team at the Turin Games. "We still have to find such new competitors to keep China among the top-level countries in the short-track field."

At the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics four years ago, short-track skater Yang Yang broke the gold medal jinx for China in the Games by winning the women's 500m and 1,000m races. She also claimed a silver for China with her team-mates.

But with the gradual retirements of these veterans from international competitions, China is losing its grip on the sport.

"While claiming the gold medals at the Winter Olympics four years ago, our gap with South Korea, the world's leading country of the sport, was small, but now the gap between the two countries has grown bigger and bigger, especially in the aspect of techniques," Tong said.

At the Turin Games, South Koreans dominated the short-track event from the beginning to the end, taking six gold medals out of the total of eight, with the other two going to Apolo Anton Ohno of the United States and Wang from China.

China's Yang, 29, who returned to join the national team after a one- year absence to study abroad, only managed a bronze in the women's 1,000m, which saw South Korean Choi Eun-kyung disqualified in the final for impeding.

China's women's team also had to accept a medal blank in the relay race after being disqualified for impeding.

The situation is even worse on the men's side. Led by veteran Li Jiajun, the four-time Olympic medallist, the men's team achieved only one bronze, by the 30-year-old Li, and finished only fifth in the relay race.

Koreans dominate

Chinese skaters, who used to dominate the sport from 1997 to 2000 thanks to the six-time world champion Yang, have seen themselves overtaken by the South Koreans. Ahn Hyun-soo and Jin Sun-yu of South Korea became the triple gold medallists among men and women skaters respectively.

"Ahn and Jin are two genius skaters on the short-track," Tong commented. "Both of them have mastered advanced techniques during the races. They are able to speed up at every part of the racing course, depending on their advanced skating skills rather than only physical strength."

Tong also pointed out that the quickly rising South Koreans came from a wide pool of talent.

"In South Korea, short-track speed skating is the popular sport, just like the table tennis in China," Tong said. "The level of its young skaters is much higher than the youth in China, where the sport is only practiced in two provinces with about 300 registered skaters."

The gap began to appear two years ago.

At the 2004 Beijing World Junior Championships, the home skaters suffered almost a total failure.

With South Korea maintaining its dominance by winning nine of the 10 titles up for grabs, China managed only a silver medal and a bronze and failed to reach the finals in six individual events.

With Yang announcing her retirement on Saturday, Li will also be sure to take off the skates.

However, Tong refused to predict a totally gloomy future for China's short-track skaters.

"Although we haven't found talented skaters in China like Ahn and Jin, I believe that from step-by-step training, new genius will come out," Tong said. "Short-track speed skating needs the efforts from generation to generation. We will do further research on the regularity of the sport and try to resume the success for China."

He also pointed out that learning such new techniques from South Korea is the necessary way.

"Since it is hard to wholly change the skills of adult skaters, we should train the youth from the very beginning to learn the techniques from the South Koreans," Tong said. "If everything goes well, the next generation of skaters may have more chance to catch up with the world."

Women's new leader

Although the overall strength of the Chinese team is a concern to all, the ice rink of Turin saw a new leader of China's women's team.

The 500m gold medallist Wang has proved her capability to take over Yang's leading role in the team.

"Except for the disqualification in the relay, I felt I did well in my first Olympic Games," said the 20-year-old, who won three medals of each colour at the Turin Games

"While being back in China, I will train harder and unite the whole team to raise our overall strength. Trying to do well in every World Cup stage and the World Championships, I hope to beat the South Koreans in the next Olympic Games."

Source: China Daily